閱讀亞歷西斯·德·托剋維爾 Alexis de Tocqueville在历史大观的作品!!! | |||
傳記
托剋維爾的家庭是在諾曼底一處的地主貴族，當地許多地方都以托剋維爾家庭為名。在取得法律的學位後，托剋維爾獲得任命為凡爾賽法庭的實習文官。他在那裏認識了擔任檢察官的古斯塔夫·德·博蒙（Gustave de Beaumont），兩人成為了親密的好友，並且在之後合作寫下了許多著作。在1831年兩人被一同送到美國以考察美國的刑法和監獄制度。在這趟旅程中，他們兩人寫下了Du système pénitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application（論美國的形事制度及其對法國的應用, 1832）。回到法國之後，托剋維爾成為了一名律師，並且將他遊歷美國的見聞記載成書，於1835年發表了這本經典的著作—《論美國的民主》（De la démocratie en Amérique）。這本書受到空前的好評，不久後也被譯為英文，使托剋維爾在美法兩地都大為知名。這本書也成為社會學的早期模型，使他於1937年獲得了chevalier de la Légion d'honneur（榮譽軍團勳章）的殊榮，並且在1841年被選為法蘭西學院的院士。
托剋維爾相當鄙視當時的七月王朝（1830-1848），於是在同一時期開跨入政界。他當選了芒什省的議員，並一直擔任這個職位到1851年為止。在議會裏，他大力替廢除主義和自由貿易的觀點辯護，但他同時也支持路易·菲利普政權對於阿爾及利亞的殖民化。托剋維爾在1842年也當選為芒什省的總參事。
除了美國之外，托剋維爾還曾前往英格蘭考察，寫下了Memoir on Pauperism一書。在1841年至1846年之間他也遊歷了阿爾及利亞，在阿爾及利亞的第一趟旅程使他寫下了Travail sur l'Algérie，在書中他批評法國的殖民化模型。身為廢除主義者，他主張應以英國的非直接統治的模型來管理殖民地，而不是將不同的人口混合在一起。他甚至主張應該在歐洲殖民者與阿拉伯人之間實行種族分離，讓兩邊都有獨立的立法體製以實行自治（他的主張在半世紀後的1881年原住民法裏被實行）。
在七月王朝於1848年的2月革命中垮臺後，托剋維爾於同年當選了國民議會的議員，他在議會裏參與了第二共和國新憲法的起草（1848-1851）。他也支持兩院製以及對共和國總統的選舉普選權，因為鄉村地區的廣大農業人口通常支持保守的政治立場，能夠抗衡巴黎都市地區的勞工人口，以免巴黎市的革命情緒影響全國政治，普選權的擴張同時使托剋維爾的選票從原本的700大幅增加至160,000人。
在第二共和國裏，托剋維爾與保守派的parti de l'Ordre 結盟，對抗激進的社會主義者和勞工。在二月革命的騷亂後不久，他認為一場處於支持“民主和社會共和國”的勞工人口與由鄉村人口和貴族構成的保守派之間的血腥衝突是難以避免了。如同他所預見的，兩大社會群體間的緊綳關係最後爆發了1848年的6月大暴動。托剋維爾選擇支持路易斯·卡芬雅剋（Louis Eugène Cavaignac）將軍所領導的鎮暴行動，卡芬雅剋最後宣佈了緊急狀態並且暫時凍結了憲法的法條。儘管身為卡芬雅剋以及保守派的支持者，托剋維爾仍然接受了奧迪隆·巴羅（Odilon Barrot）政府的邀請，在1849年6月至10月間擔任法國外交部的部長。由於與總統拿破侖三世理念不合，他在就任後數個月便辭職而去，但仍擔任國民議會議員。
托剋維爾支持波旁王朝的復位，反對拿破侖傢族的第二帝國（1851-1871）。他在1851年的總統選舉中支持路易斯·卡芬雅剋對抗拿破侖三世。在選舉之後，新當選的拿破侖於1851年12月2日發動政變，下令解散國民議會。托剋維爾與其他議會代表一同在巴黎聚集以對抗政變，但卻被拿破侖以“叛國罪”為名逮捕。在遭拘禁一小段時間後托剋維爾獲得釋放，接着他完全退出了政壇，與他的英裔妻子Marie Mottley一同隱居於鄉間的城堡（château de Tocqueville）。在那裏他也開始撰寫《舊制度與大革命》（L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution），在1856年出版了全書的第一捲，但在撰寫第二捲的期間因病去世。
論美國的民主
托剋維爾在1835年出版的《民主與美國》是最早開始探討美國政治和文化的主要作品之一，並且也成為研究這方面領域的經典作品之一。在書中托剋維爾以他敏銳的觀察力，從一名第三者的角度觀察新大陸的民主制度。他贊揚了民主制度在美國的成功發展，但他同時也對於民主制度下出現多數暴政的可能性提出了警告—他將那稱為是“溫和的暴政”。這本書是托剋維爾在19世紀初期以遊歷美國的經驗所寫成的，那時正是美國剛經歷了自由市場革命、西部擴展、以及傑剋遜民主的快速發展，完全改變了美國生活面貌的時候。托剋維爾認為民主可以適當的平衡自由與平等兩者，在照顧個人的同時也顧及社會的發展。托剋維爾認為過度的社會平等會導致人與人之間的孤立，造成更多的政府幹預、以及自由遭到侵蝕。托剋維爾也批評了個人主義，他認為人與人之間根基於相同目標的團结合作，能將美國建立為一個更理想的國傢，也能因此而建立起一個公民社會，從而避免過度依賴政府的幹預。
從柏拉圖的《理想國》和《法律篇》開始，許許多多思想傢的一貫主張是：為了避免邪惡和貪婪，私人財産必須被廢除；衹有當財産的力量被完全消除後，知識份子精英的“哲學家國王”才能浮現，並對社會進行統治。衹有當美德成為唯一的權力基礎時，人類社會才能達成理想的目標。而早期的現代思想傢從托馬斯·莫爾開始，也采取了柏拉圖對於私人財産的批判姿態。柏拉圖和莫爾都認為財産的平衡和權力的平衡是一致的，如果財産的持有出現不平等，那麽那些擁有財産的人必然也會掌握權力。而18世紀的孟德斯鳩也認同這種觀點，認為衹有當財産被平均分配時，真正的美德才能浮現並領導政治。這些思想傢都主張社會的平等是一個共和國的必要條件，因為這樣才能保證統治者是最傑出而最優秀的。
托剋維爾最初也認同財産平衡等於權力平衡這種觀點，但在《論美國的民主》一書裏，托剋維爾考察美國所得出的結論卻徹底脫離了這些思想傢，成為驚人的轉變。托剋維爾起初試着探索為何美國能夠發展的如此繁榮，他見證到了美國社會與老舊的歐洲世界有着顯著的差異，與歐洲相反的是，美國社會將賺取金錢視為是一種最主要的道德，結果使美國的一般百姓得以享受人類史上空前的自尊和自由。在美國社會裏，幾乎所有人都抱持勤勞工作和超越他人的理想，一般百姓從不服從精英的權威，同時激進的個人主義與市場資本主義發展至了前所未見的地步。
托剋維爾主張，正是這種獨特的美國精神和道德觀，使得美國脫離了歐洲社會的局限和牽絆。與歐洲不同的是，前往美國的新移民發現了有廣大而無人居住的土地可以拓墾，所有到達美國的人都可以擁有他們自己的土地、並且獨立經營自己的生活。托剋維爾指出，數量稀少的舊精英以及地主貴族的確存在，但他們完全沒有機會抵擋因為廣大土地的所有權而衍生出的資本主義價值觀。在這樣一個開放社會裏，邁嚮富裕的機會多的數不盡，所有人都開始建立屬於他們自己的世界：勤勞而具創新精神的企業傢成為社會的主流。
而這種先天條件也孕育出了美國獨特的政治和社會價值觀，决定了殖民地和後來的地方州會通過的法案。到了18世紀末期，崇尚賺錢、勤勞工作、以及個人主義的民主價值已經支配美國北部，消除了大多數舊世界遺留的貴族及其價值觀。不過，要在美國南部消除這些事物則顯得較為睏難，因為奴隸制度産生了地主貴族以及類似於舊世界的從屬關係，這種現象一直要到南北戰爭的戰前時期為止。
托剋維爾指出正是這些在北部（以及稍後在南部）出現的資本主義價值觀，超越了舊世界的道德觀和社會機製。立法機構進一步廢止了來自舊世界的長子遺産繼承權和其他遺産繼承的限製，使得土地的所有權得以廣泛的分配。地主精英失去了將所有財産分配給單一長子的特權，因此財富變的更難以鞏固，更多人也因此會努力的替自己的未來奮鬥。
托剋維爾主張，在這樣快速民主化的社會裏，人們往往沒有什麽特別“傑出”的道德觀念，而是會希望透過勤勞工作來纍積龐大的財富。在托剋維爾看來，美國在這種獨特的民族特質上跳脫了傳統的歐洲。在歐洲，沒有人對賺錢有太大的興趣，最底層的社會階級對於賺取足以溫飽以外的財富並不抱希望，而上層階級則認為賺錢是粗魯的、下流的、而且與他們的貴族身分不相搭配的。托剋維爾所指出的這些在文化上的差異也被後來許多思想傢和學者所采納，解釋了為何歐洲在19世紀會出現一群穿着豪華服裝、卻走上街頭企圖利用勞工發起階級戰爭和革命的菁英階級；然而在美國，當勞工看到穿着豪華服裝的有錢人時，他們所想的卻是透過更努力工作的方式來纍積財富，認為他們衹要肯奮鬥和創新，終有一日也可以穿着到更豪華的衣服。
因此這些獨特的美國價值，在許多人看來，便解釋了美國例外主義的成因，同時也能解釋許多美國獨有的神秘現象，例如美國從來沒有像其他西方國傢一樣如此徹底的擁抱社會主義。對托剋維爾而言，美國與歐洲最大的差異也就是這些獨特的民主價值觀。儘管他最初認同柏拉圖、托馬斯·莫爾、和孟德斯鳩所主張的財富平衡才能確保權力平衡的概念，但托剋維爾最後得出了完全不同的結論。他主張就如同他對美國的觀察所顯示的，財富的平衡並無法確保統治者便會是最好的人選，事實上結果反而顛倒過來了。廣泛的、而且程序公正的財産所有權成為美國的獨特現象，這不但决定了美國社會的獨特價值觀和精神，同時也能解釋為何美國大衆對於精英文化抱持如此輕視的態度。
托剋維爾並指出，除了消除掉一切舊世界的貴族影響外，美國平常百姓也拒絶服從那些擁有較多財富、或擁有較多天資和智慧的人。托剋維爾認為，儘管這些知識份子精英都是在美國社會裏正當脫穎而出的，但他們並無法享受與在歐洲一樣程度政治權力。平常的美國百姓享受極大的自主權力，並且拒絶服從精英知識份子的領導。這樣的民主文化促成了一種明顯而獨特的平等觀念，但如同托剋維爾主張的，鞏固這種道德觀和精神的根基，也使得美國社會有着平凡庸俗的風氣。
至於那些天生具有道德和天資的人，則無法像在歐洲那樣擁有衆多的權利和地位，而是必須迎合當前美國社會的需求才能生存。托剋維爾預言指出，那些擁有最好教育背景和天資的人衹有兩種生涯途徑可以選擇，要不就是加入知識份子的小圈圈，替社會所面臨的平凡問題研究解决辦法—這些小圈圈則成為了美國的學術界；又或者，利用他們的天資和才能，從事私人企業的牟利生涯，替自己賺取龐大的財富。托剋維爾於《論美國的民主》一書裏的最後得出了這個結論，以19世紀初的美國歷史為根基，解釋了美國社會文化和價值觀的本質，並且也解釋了為何美國能發展成熟至今天的面貌。
名言
民主與社會主義除了平等這一詞以外，沒有任何相同的地方。但註意兩者間的差異：民主是為了自由而追求平等，社會主義則是為了壓迫和奴役而追求平等。
我會說當前世界上衹剩下兩個偉大的國傢—俄羅斯和美國；除了這兩個國傢以外，其他所有國傢似乎都已經面臨他們的極限，並且都衹能試圖維持他們的力量，而他們的力量逐漸衰退的程度則是沒有底限的。
暴政可以在沒有信念的情況下進行統治，但自由則不能。
他們（皇帝們）經常濫用權力剝奪人民的財産和生命：他們其中幾個人的暴政也達到了空前的地步，但其數量依然不多……如果暴政是在我們今天的民主國傢裏浮現，那它將會改變為另一副面貌；這樣的暴政將會更為廣泛、但卻同時帶有溫和的色彩，它將會在奴役人民的同時，卻不讓他們感覺半點痛苦。
那些要求得到自由以外的任何東西的人，註定生而為奴。
我還不曉得有哪個國傢像美國一樣，人民是如此的熱愛財富，而維持財富平等的理論則被人民所強烈藐視。
至於說到我，我是一個民主主義者；這就是為什麽我不可能是一個社會主義者。民主和社會主義是不可能並存的，你不可能將兩者混在一起。
所有希望摧毀民主國傢的自由的人都該知道，發動戰爭是最快而又最可靠的手段。
美國之偉大不在於她比其他國傢更為聰明，而在於她有更多能力修補自己犯下的錯誤。
一個美國人的一生，就好像一場賭註機會的遊戲一般、一場革命舞臺、或一場戰役。
民主最重要的原則不在於應該消除龐大的財富，而是在於財富不應該聚集於同一個人手上。因此民主制度裏會出現擁有龐大財富的有錢人，但他們本身無法構成一個社會階級。
如果想要獲得新聞自由所帶來的大量優點，我們也必須忍受它所創造出的各種邪惡……
在一個擁有集會自由的國傢，秘密結社是不會出現的。美國擁有許多不同的團體派係，但卻沒有陰謀集團存在。
外交不需要民主特質，它需要的是民主之外的東西。民主國傢傾嚮於服從衝動而非謹慎，為滿足一時衝動而放棄長遠大計。法國大革命後，美國國內即表現了這種傾嚮；全賴華盛頓堅毅不屈的性格與他享有的威望，纔阻止了國人群情激憤的冒失衝動，避免對英宣戰（因為當時美國無力挑釁，需要和平）。（《論美國的民主》）
著作
Du système pénitentaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France (1833年)—《論美國的形事制度及其對法國的應用》，與古斯塔夫·德·博蒙合著
De la démocratie en Amerique (1835年/1840年)—《論美國的民主》，原本分為兩捲出版，第一捲在1835年，第二捲在1840年
L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856年)—《舊制度與大革命》，托剋維爾第二知名的著作
Recollections (1893年)—《回憶錄》，這是經歷1848年革命而寫下的紀錄，托剋維爾生前從沒想過要將其公諸於世；在他死後他的妻子和古斯塔夫·德·博蒙將其出版
Journey to America (1831年 – 1832年)—《美國遊記》，托剋維爾遊歷美國時的旅行遊記，由George Lawrence翻譯為英文，1960年由耶魯大學出版社出版
An eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition, Tocqueville was an active participant in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I.
Life
Alexis de Tocqueville came from an old Norman aristocratic family with ancestors who participated in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. His parents, Hervé Louis François Jean Bonaventure Clérel, Comte de Tocqueville, an officer of the Constitutional Guard of King Louis XVI, and Louise Madeleine Le Peletier de Rosanbo, narrowly avoided the guillotine due to the fall of Robespierre in 1794. After an exile in England, they returned to France during the reign of Napoleon. Under the Bourbon Restoration, his father became a noble peer and prefect.
Tocqueville attended the Lycée Fabert in Metz.
Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career at the start of the same period, 1830. Thus, he became deputy of the Manche department (Valognes), a position which he maintained until 1851. In parliament, he defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade, while supporting the colonisation of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe's regime. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of the Manche in 1842, and became the president of the department's conseil général between 1849 and 1851.
In 1831, he obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in America, and proceeded there with his life-long friend Gustave de Beaumont. He returned in less than two years, and published a report, but the real result of his tour was the famous De la Démocratie en Amerique, which appeared in 1835.
Apart from America, Tocqueville also made an observational tour of England, producing Memoir on Pauperism. In 1841 and 1846, he traveled to Algeria. His first travel inspired his Travail sur l'Algérie, in which he criticized the French model of colonisation, which was based on an assimilationist view, preferring instead the British model of indirect rule, which avoided mixing different populations together. He went as far as openly advocating racial segregation between the European colonists and the "Arabs" through the implementation of two different legislative systems (a half century before implementation of the 1881 Indigenous code based on religion). In 1835 de Tocqueville made a journey through Ireland. His observations provide one of the best pictures of how Ireland stood before the Great Famine 1845-1849. The observations chronicle the growing Catholic middle-class and the appalling conditions in which most Catholic tenant farmers lived. De Tocqueville's libertarian sympathies and his affinity for his Irish co-religionists are made clear.
After the fall of the July Monarchy during the February 1848 Revolution, Tocqueville was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, where he became a member of the Commission charged with the drafting of the new Constitution of the Second Republic (1848–1851). He defended bicameralism (the existence of two parliamentary chambers) and the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage. As the countryside was thought to be more conservative than the labouring population of Paris, universal suffrage was conceived as a means to counteract the revolutionary spirit of Paris.
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During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the parti de l'Ordre against the socialists. A few days after the February insurrection, he believed that a violent clash between the Parisian workers' population led by socialists agitating in favor of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and the conservatives, which included the aristocracy and the rural population, was inescapable. As Tocqueville had foreseen, these social tensions eventually exploded during the June Days Uprising of 1848. Led by General Cavaignac, the repression was supported by Tocqueville, who advocated the "regularization" of the state of siege declared by Cavaignac, and other measures promoting suspension of the constitutional order. Between May and September, Tocqueville participated in the Constitutional Commission which Wrote the new Constitution. His proposals underlined the importance of his American experience, as his amendment about the President and his reelection.
A supporter of Cavaignac and of the parti de l'Ordre, Tocqueville, however, accepted an invitation to enter Odilon Barrot's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 3 June to 31 October 1849. There, during the troubled days of June 1849, he pleaded with Jules Dufaure, Interior Minister, for the reestablishment of the state of siege in the capital and approved the arrest of demonstrators. Tocqueville, who since February 1848 had supported laws restricting political freedoms, approved the two laws voted immediately after the June 1849 days, which restricted the liberty of clubs and freedom of the press. This active support in favor of laws restricting political freedoms stands in contrast of his defense of freedoms in Democracy in America. A closer analysis reveals, however, that Tocqueville favored order as "the sine qua non for the conduct of serious politics. He [hoped] to bring the kind of stability to French political life that would permit the steady growth of liberty unimpeded by the regular rumblings of the earthquakes of revolutionary change.″
Tocqueville had supported Cavaignac against Louis Napoléon Bonaparte for the presidential election of 1848. Opposed to Louis Napoléon's 2 December 1851 coup which followed his election, Tocqueville was among the deputies who gathered at the 10th arrondissement of Paris in an attempt to resist the coup and have Napoleon III judged for "high treason," as he had violated the constitutional limit on terms of office. Detained at Vincennes and then released, Tocqueville, who supported the Restoration of the Bourbons against Bonaparte's Second Empire (1851–1871), quit political life and retreated to his castle (Château de Tocqueville). Against this image of Tocqueville, biographer Joseph Epstein has concluded: "Tocqueville could never bring himself to serve a man he considered a usurper and despot. He fought as best he could for the political liberty in which he so ardently believed—had given it, in all, thirteen years of his life [....] He would spend the days remaining to him fighting the same fight, but conducting it now from libraries, archives, and his own desk." There, he began the draft of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, publishing the first tome in 1856, but leaving the second one unfinished.
Tocqueville's professed religion was Roman Catholicism.
Translated Versions of Democracy in America and Effects on Meaning
Henry Reeve, translated circa 1839 This translation was completed by Reeve with work from Francis Bowen and Phillips Bradely. Tocqueville provided a critique of the translation as follows "Without wishing to do so and by following the instinct of your opinions, you have quite vividly colored what was contrary to Democracy and almost erased what could do harm to Aristocracy." Although it is not exactly clear what is meant, there are two general thoughts on its meaning. First, that Tocqueville believed the translation to be defective, or second, that Tocqueville was startled by his own voice.
Richard D. Heffner, translated circa 1956
Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, translated circa 2000
Arthur Goldhammer, translated circa 2004 The most recent translation of the text by Tocqueville, the translation stresses to require the reader to think more about the text instead of relying on "instant opinions" provided by previous translations. A speech from the translator given at Harvard University provides a keen insight into the development of his translation:
To shed light on the possible inaccuracies of the original translation, the title of the text should be "On Democracy in America", however this was changed by Reeve. Although not a complete rewrite, the clarity that Tocqueville wrote with depended on its concreteness and by making words interchangeable at will, it does have an effect on the meaning especially to readers who do not put the effort to research the text or read it in its native French.
Democracy in America
In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through America in the early 19th Century when the market revolution, Western expansion, and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life. He saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as the community. Tocqueville's impressions of American religion and its relationship to the broader national culture are likewise notable:
"Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.
There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religion with fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country."
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337, respectively.
Tocqueville wrote of "Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans" by saying "But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom" in Volumes One, Part I, Chapter 3. He further comments on equality by saying "Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. As none of them is strong enough to fight alone with advantage, the only guarantee of liberty is for everyone to combine forces. But such a combination is not always in evidence.". The above is often misquoted as a slavery quote due to previous translations of the French text. The most recent translation from Arthur Goldhammer in 2004 translates the meaning to be as stated above. Examples of misquoted sources are numerous on the internet, the actual text does not contain the words "Americans were so enamored by equality" anywhere in the text.
Page from original working manuscript of Democracy in America, ca. 1840
Tocqueville explicitly cites inequality as being incentive for poor to become rich, and notes that it is not often two generations within a family maintain success, and that it is inheritance laws that split and eventually break apart someone's estate that cause a constant cycle of churn between the poor and rich, thereby over generations making the poor rich and rich poor. He cites protective laws in France at the time that protected an estate from being split apart amongst heirs, thereby preserving wealth and preventing a churn of wealth such as was perceived by him in 1835 within in the United States of America.
Tocqueville's main purpose was to analyze the functioning of political society and various forms of political associations, although he brought some reflections on civil society too (and relations between political and civil society). For Tocqueville as for Hegel and Marx, civil society was a sphere of private entrepreneurship and civilian affairs regulated by civil code. As a critic of individualism, Tocqueville thought that through associating, the coming together of people for mutual purpose, both in public and private, Americans are able to overcome selfish desires, thus making both a self-conscious and active political society and a vibrant civil society functioning independently from the state.
Tocqueville's penetrating analysis sought to understand the peculiar nature of American political life. In describing America, he agreed with thinkers such as Aristotle and Montesquieu that the balance of property determined the balance of political power, but his conclusions after that differed radically from those of his predecessors. Tocqueville tried to understand why America was so different from Europe in the last throes of aristocracy. America, in contrast to the aristocratic ethic, was a society where hard work and money-making was the dominant ethic, where the common man enjoyed a level of dignity which was unprecedented, where commoners never deferred to elites, and where what he described as crass individualism and market capitalism had taken root to an extraordinary degree.
Tocqueville expressed interest in the unique American condition of equality in terms of income, using the 90/10 inequality ratio. His hypothetical analysis could later be applied to the Kuznets Curve. Tocqueville's data is consistent with the early stages of income equality of a developing country, which is not surprising considering America's heavy reliance on agriculture in the early nineteenth century. Tocqueville writes "Among a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living...Labor is held in honor; the prejudice is not against but in its favor."
This equality of social conditions bred political and civilian values which determined the type of legislation passed in the colonies and later in the states. By the late 18th Century, democratic values which championed money-making, hard work, and individualism had eradicated, in the North, most remaining vestiges of old world aristocracy and values. Eliminating them in the South proved more difficult, for slavery had produced a landed aristocracy and web of patronage and dependence similar to the old world, which would last until the antebellum period before the Civil War.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville asserted that the values that had triumphed in the North and were present in the South had begun to suffocate old-world ethics and social arrangements. Legislatures abolished primogeniture and entails, resulting in more widely distributed land holdings. Landed elites lost the ability to pass on fortunes to single individuals. Hereditary fortunes became exceedingly difficult to secure and more people were forced to struggle for their own living.
This rapidly democratizing society, as Tocqueville understood it, had a population devoted to "middling" values which wanted to amass, through hard work, vast fortunes. In Tocqueville's mind, this explained why America was so different from Europe. In Europe, he claimed, nobody cared about making money. The lower classes had no hope of gaining more than minimal wealth, while the upper classes found it crass, vulgar, and unbecoming of their sort to care about something as unseemly as money; many were virtually guaranteed wealth and took it for granted. At the same time in America workers would see people fashioned in exquisite attire and merely proclaim that through hard work they too would soon possess the fortune necessary to enjoy such luxuries.
But, despite maintaining with Aristotle, Montesquieu, and others that the balance of property determined the balance of power, Tocqueville argued that, as America showed, equitable property holdings did not ensure the rule of the best men. In fact, it did quite the opposite. The widespread, relatively equitable property ownership which distinguished America and determined its mores and values also explained why the American masses held elites in such contempt.
More than just imploding any traces of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence. These natural elites, who Tocqueville asserted were the lone virtuous members of American society, could not enjoy much share in the political sphere as a result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power, claimed too great a voice in the public sphere, to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted, as he put it, a middling mediocrity.
Those who possessed true virtue and talent would be left with limited choices. Those with the most education and intelligence would either, Tocqueville prognosticated, join limited intellectual circles to explore the weighty and complex problems facing society which have today become the academic or contemplative realms, or use their superior talents to take advantage of America's growing obsession with money-making and amass vast fortunes in the private sector. Uniquely positioned at a crossroads in American History, Tocqueville's Democracy in America attempted to capture the essence of American culture and values.
Though a supporter of colonialism, Tocqueville could clearly perceive the evils that blacks and Indians had been subjected to in America. Tocqueville notes that among the races that exist in America:
The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience the effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them.
Tocqueville contrasted the settlers of Virginia with the middle-class, religious Puritans who founded New England, and analyzed the debasing influence of slavery:
"The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony...Artisans and agriculturalists arrived afterwards...hardly in any respect above the level of the inferior classes in England. No lofty views, no spiritual conception presided over the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character, the laws and the whole future of the South. Slavery...dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. On this same English foundation there developed in the North very different characteristics.
Tocqueville concluded that removal of the Negro population from America could not resolve the problem as he writes at the end of the first Democracy:
If the colony of Liberia were able to receive thousands of new inhabitants every year, and if the Negroes were in a state to be sent thither with advantage; if the Union were to supply the society with annual subsidies, and to transport the Negroes to Africa in government vessels, it would still be unable to counterpoise the natural increase of population among the blacks; and as it could not remove as many men in a year as are born upon its territory within that time, it could not prevent the growth of the evil which is daily increasing in the states. The Negro race will never leave those shores of the American continent to which it was brought by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will not disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist. The inhabitants of the United States may retard the calamities which they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their efficient cause.
In 1855, he wrote the following text published by Maria Weston Chapman in the Liberty Bell: Testimony against Slavery
I do not think it is for me, a foreigner, to indicate to the United States the time, the measures, or the men by whom Slavery shall be abolished.
Still, as the persevering enemy of despotism everywhere, and under all its forms, I am pained and astonished by the fact that the freest people in the world is, at the present time, almost the only one among civilized and Christian nations which yet maintains personal servitude; and this while serfdom itself is about disappearing, where it has not already disappeared, from the most degraded nations of Europe.
An old and sincere friend of America, I am uneasy at seeing Slavery retard her progress, tarnish her glory, furnish arms to her detractors, compromise the future career of the Union which is the guaranty of her safety and greatness, and point out beforehand to her, to all her enemies, the spot where they are to strike. As a man, too, I am moved at the spectacle of man's degradation by man, and I hope to see the day when the law will grant equal civil liberty to all the inhabitants of the same empire, as God accords the freedom of the will, without distinction, to the dwellers upon earth.
According to him assimilation of blacks would be almost impossible and this was already being demonstrated in the Northern states. As Tocqueville predicted, formal freedom and equality and segregation would become this population's reality after the Civil War and during Reconstruction — as would the bumpy road to true integration of blacks.
Assimilation, however, was the best solution for Native Americans. But since they were too proud to assimilate, they would inevitably become extinct. Displacement was another part of America's Indian policy. Both populations were "undemocratic", or without the qualities, intellectual and otherwise, needed to live in a democracy. Tocqueville shared many views on assimilation and segregation of his and the coming epochs, but he opposed Gobineau's scientific racism theories as found in The Inequality of Human Races (1853–1855).
Toqueville was also something of a forward thinking prophet when, in his Democracy In America he almost seems to predict the future of the world in the Cold War saying "There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans... Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.".
When Tocqueville toured the United States from 1831 to 1832 the Naturalization Act of 1790, signed into law by George Washington, prohibited persons of color from becoming citizens. Only persons who were "white" of "good moral character" could become citizens; while freed blacks, Asians, and Native Americans were denied citizenship. The citizens mentioned in Tocqueville's book, Democracy in America, were all of the white race.
The 1841 discourse on the Conquest of Algeria
French historian of colonialism Olivier LeCour Grandmaison has underlined how Tocqueville (as well as Michelet) used the term "extermination" to describe what was happening during the colonization of Western United States and the Indian removal period. Tocqueville thus expressed himself, in 1841, concerning the conquest of Algeria:
As far as I am concerned, I came back from Africa with the pathetic notion that at present in our way of waging war we are far more barbaric than the Arabs themselves. These days, they represent civilization, we do not. This way of waging war seems to me as stupid as it is cruel. It can only be found in the head of a coarse and brutal soldier. Indeed, it was pointless to replace the Turks only to reproduce what the world rightly found so hateful in them. This, even for the sake of interest is more noxious than useful; for, as another officer was telling me, if our sole aim is to equal the Turks, in fact we shall be in a far lower position than theirs: barbarians for barbarians, the Turks will always outdo us because they are Muslim barbarians.
In France, I have often heard men I respect but do not approve of, deplore that crops should be burnt and granaries emptied and finally that unarmed men, women and children should be seized. In my view these are unfortunate circumstances that any people wishing to wage war against the Arabs must accept. I think that all the means available to wreck tribes must be used, barring those that the human kind and the right of nations condemn. I personally believe that the laws of war enable us to ravage the country and that we must do so either by destroying the crops at harvest time or any time by making fast forays also known as raids the aim of which it to get hold of men or flocks.
Whatever the case, we may say in a general manner that all political freedoms must be suspended in Algeria.
Tocqueville thought the conquest of Algeria was important for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France's position in the world, and, second, changes in French society. Tocqueville believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride, threatened," he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism"." Applauding the methods of General Bugeaud, Tocqueville went as far as saying that "war in Africa" had become a science: "war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science."
Tocqueville advocated racial segregation in Algeria with two distinct legislations, one for each very separate communities. Such legislation would eventually be enacted with the Crémieux decrees and the 1881 Indigenous Code, which gave French citizenship only to European settlers and Algerian Jews, while Muslim Algerians were confined to a second-grade citizenship.
Tocqueville's opposition to the invasion of Kabylia
In opposition to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Jean-Louis Benoît claimed that given the extent of racial prejudices during the colonization of Algeria, Tocqueville was one of its "most moderate supporters." Benoît claimed that it was wrong to assume Tocqueville was a supporter of Bugeaud, despite his 1841 apologetic discourse. It seems that Tocqueville changed viewpoint in particular after his second travel to Algeria in 1846. Hereafter, he criticized Bugeaud's desire to invade Kabylia (home of the Berbers) in a 1847 speech to the Assembly. Tocqueville, who did advocate racial segregation between Europeans and Arabs, judged otherwise the Berbers. In an August 22, 1837 proposal, Tocqueville distinguished the Berbers from the Arabs. He considered that these last ones should have a self-government (a bit on the model of British indirect rule, thus going against the French assimiliationist stance).
Tocqueville's views on the matter were complex, and evolved over time. Even though in his 1841 report on Algeria Tocqueville admitted that Bugeaud succeeded in implementing a technique of war that enabled him to defeat Abd al-Qadir's resistance and applauded him on one hand, he opposed on the other hand the conquest of Kabylia in his first Letter about Algeria (1837). In this document, he advocated that France and the French military leave Kabylia apart to preserve a peaceful zone so as to try and develop commercial links. In all his subsequent speeches and writings he kept on being against any attempt towards intrusion into Kabylia.
During the debate concerning the 1846 extraordinary funds, Tocqueville denounced Bugeaud's conduct of military operations, and succeeded in convincing the Assembly of not voting the funds in support of Bugeaud's military columns. Tocqueville considered Bugeaud's will to invade Kabylia, despite the opposition of the Assembly, as a seditious move in front of which the government opted for cowardice.
Report on Algeria (1847)
In his 1847 Report on Algeria, Tocqueville declared that Europe should avoid making the same mistake they made with the European colonization of the Americas in order to avoid the bloody consequences. More particularly he reminds his countrymen of a solemn caution whereby he warns them that if the methods used towards the Algerian people remain unchanged, colonization will end in a blood bath. The 1847 caution went unheeded and the heralded tragedy did happen.
Tocqueville includes in his report on Algeria that the fate of their soldiers and finances depended on how they treated the natives and established a sound government. Creating peace in the country would reduce the number of soldiers. However, by treating the inhabitants of Algeria as an obstacle then the two sides would be subject to much conflict and strife.
References in popular literature
Tocqueville was quoted in several chapters of the Toby Young's memoirs, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People to explain his observation of widespread homogeneity of thought even amongst intellectual elites at Harvard University, during his time spent there. He is frequently quoted and studied in American history classes. Tocqueville is the inspiration for Australian novelist Peter Carey in his 2009 novel, Parrot and Olivier in America.
In 24:Redemption, President Allison Taylor quotes de Tocqueville saying, "in every democracy, the people get the government they deserve". She uses this quote in her inaugural speech to the nation.